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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was -- Week 2

Week 2 for the Washington Capitals looked a lot like Week 1,
just worse.At least in Week 1 they were
in games.Not so, not really, in Week 2.

Record: 0-2-0

By the time the week was over, the Caps were 1-4-0, the
first time they went their first five games of the season without a win in
regulation time since the 2000-2001 season.The silver lining there is that the Caps went on to finish with 96
points that season.For the moment there
is no silver lining here, other than to say that the Caps, with their 1-3-0
record against Western Conference teams, are hardly alone in their frustration
against the other conference.Through
Saturday’s games the West holds a 23-6-3 edge against the East (3-0-1 against
the Caps), and no Western team has a sub-.500 record against the East.

Offense: 1.50/game (season: 2.40 / rank: T-21st)

The third line of Jason Chimera, Eric Fehr,and Joel Ward had
two of the Caps’ three goals this week.Alex Ovechkin had the other, but he had his four-game goal scoring
streak to open the season stopped in the Caps’ 5-1 loss to Colorado on
Saturday.The second line of Brooks
Laich, Mikhail Grabovski, and Troy Brouwer did not record a point.They have not yet recorded a point as a line
this season.

The team continues to struggle as a group, not with getting
shots on goal (they are averaging 34.0 per game), but with getting them into
the goal.Twelve goals on 170 shots – a
7.1 percent shooting percentage – ranks 25th in the league.The even strength offense continues to be a
problem.The Caps recorded three goals
on 66 even strength shots (4.6 percent) in their two games this week.

Defense: 4.00/game (season: 4.00 / rank: T-26th)

It was not a good week to be John Carlson.He was on ice for four of the five even
strength goals scored against the Caps, splitting them evenly -- two while
paired with John Erskine against Carolina and two more while paired with
Alexander Urbom against Colorado.Twice pucks clicked off his stick and past his own goaltender. Fifteen different skaters were on ice for even strength goals, which
might not seem unusual, but over two games?

If you are going to look for a bright spot here, it would be
in the Mike Green/Karl Alzner duo.Green
skated a total of 36:58 at even strength this week, Alzner a total of
33:47.They were on ice together for one
even strength goal against, that being Matt Duchene’s goal in the Colorado game
on Saturday (although it was Alzner who was victimized on the play).

Goaltending: 4.04 GAA/ .875 save percentage (season: 3.78 / .880)

It would have been hard to think that the goaltending would
be worse than in Week 1 (3.61/.883), but it was.Braden Holtby was not bad in his start
against Carolina, but he was just leaky enough with a high volume of shots
faced (36) to come up just short in a 3-2 loss.Luck…and bad eyesight… had a little bit to do with as well, though.Not his eyesight, but that of the linesman on
what would be Elias Lindholm’s first NHL goal.The puck is circled in red in this screen shot, near Tom Wilson’s skates…

Jeff Skinner is clearly offside on this play, but play went
on.Lindholm would pick up the puck and
pinball it off Wilson and the stick of John Carlson for a goal that would tie
the game midway through the second period.It should not have mattered, given that Alex Ovechkin would restore the
lead less than a minute later, but it was indicative of the sort of “just
short” week – one game, actually – that Holtby had.

Michal Neuvirth, on the other hand, had a difficult time
with the Colorado Avalanche.He gave up
five goals on the first 22 shots he faced. He suffered some bad luck early –
another Carlson stick deflecting another opponent’s shot past his own
goaltender, but he could have/should have had Matt Duchene’s shot less than
eight minutes later that gave the Avs a 2-0 lead, and the shorthanded goal he
allowed to Alex Tanguay to end the competitive portion of the evening once and
for all. The score – one that Tanguay converted on a shot from just outside the goal line extended – was
the kind that deflates a team.

In a week where almost nothing went right for the Caps, much
of it their own doing, goaltending was just another part of it.

Power Play: 0-7 / 0.0 percent (season: 31.6 percent / rank: T-3rd)

Live by the power play, die by the power play.The Caps took the o-fer for the week,
misfiring on seven shots in 10:01 of total power play time.There was an ominous note in there.Alex Ovechkin, who is still tied for the league
lead in power play goals, had just one power play shot on goal in the two
games.Further, Colorado seemed very
intent on shutting him off, deploying a “triangle and one” defense, where the
weak side defenseman played him man-to-man.The Caps tried the occasional back-door play with Ovechkin ducking
behind that defenseman and darting to the net, but none were successful.Going forward it will bear watching if other
teams play him this way.John Carlson
was the only Cap to record more than one power play shot over the two games
(three).And, there was that shorthanded
goal that was allowed as the Avalanche were changing out their defensemen.Ugh.

It says something that 18 teams have penalty killing numbers
below 80 percent, but we are not sure what.For the Caps, who are one of those teams, this was another of those
areas where they took a step backward. The Caps were burned once with a taste of
their own medicine, Alexander Semin converting a one timer from the left wing
circle (very “Ovechkinesque”) while trying to kill a 5-on-3 power play.On the other, they just lost Nathan MacKinnon
circling from low to Michal Neuvirth’s right up into the slot behind Martin Erat.Steve Oleksy could not close the gap soon
enough, and all MacKinnon had to do was get the pass from Paul Stastny and
shoot the puck on net.He did, and he
did, and the Avs had a 3-0 lead in what was a 5-1 win.

It was not a bad week from an opportunity standpoint, the
Caps allowing eight power plays.But
teams got their shots, putting 12 on net in 12:46 of total power play time.

Boy, this has to get better, and the sooner the better
still.The Caps improved their defense
(2.5 goals against per game), yet it cannot be called “good” in this
respect.Still, it was a lot better than
the offense.The second line is still
without a point as a line at even strength, and the top line, frankly, has not
been a lot better.This week the line
was on ice for one goal, that scored by Alex Ovechkin (Nicklas Backstrom
getting an assist for another top line point), but as a group this season they
have two goals, both by Ovechkin, and four assists, split between Backstrom and
Marcus Johansson.The scoring lines are
not scoring at even strength.

The Caps won the week and once more were good in the ends,
going 31-for-52 in the offensive end (59.6 percent) and 24-for-47 in the
defensive end (51.1 percent).There was
that lost faceoff in the defensive end on the 5-on-3 power play goal for
Carolina, suggesting that the when is often as important as the how many when
it comes to faceoff wins.Eric Fehr came
back to earth some this week, going 11-for-25 (44.0 percent), but he still
remains in the top-30 in the league (56.1 percent).Mikhail Grabovski had a fine week in the
circle, going 16-for-24 overall (66.7 percent), including 8-for-11 in the
offensive end.

Goals by period:

Small wonder that the Caps lost each period for the
week.Those first period results are
still a problem with but one goal scored in the first period in the two
games.After two weeks the Caps are tied
for 22nd in goals scored in the first period (only three teams have
scored fewer), tied for 27th in goals allowed in the first period
(only Edmonton has allowed more).Not a
recipe for success.

In the end…

Five games should be enough to at least get an idea of how
the lines are shaking out.The fact that
the second line has no points in five games has to have a great big spotlight
shined upon it.The obvious
consideration here is whether Martin Erat needs to be given a shot in that spot.But that could present problems as well.Would moving Erat to the second line mean
dropping Brooks Laich to the third line?If so, that would mean breaking up the only line that seems to have any
spark?Does it mean dropping him to the
fourth line in a one-for-one swap?Well,
that’s a possibility, too, one supposes.

Then there is the defense.John Erskine, Alexander Urbom, Connor Carrick, Steve Oleksy, Nate
Schmidt, Jack Hillen.That is the roster
of defensemen three through six having dressed so far.As a group they have not been awful (well, there is John Erskine being
on ice for more goals against than anyone in that group and tied for worst
among defensemen despite having missed a game), but they – meaning Urbom,
Oleksy, and Schmidt as the current contestants – have the look of a problem
waiting to unfold.

Five games in, this is a team that is having trouble playing
good periods, let alone good games.It
looks entirely too much like last year’s start, and that is not fire to be
played with.

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The Washington Capitals ended the 2016-2017 as one of 12 franchises in the NHL never to win a Stanley Cup. Of that group, only the St. Louis Blues (48 seasons), Buffalo Sabres (45 seasons), and Vancouver Canucks (45 seasons) have gone longer never having won a Cup than the Capitals (41 seasons). Six teams came into the league after the Capitals entered the league in 1974-1975 and have won Stanley Cups: Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils (1976-1977), Edmonton Oilers (1979-1980), Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche (1979-1980), Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes (1979-1980), Tampa Bay Lightning (1992-1993), and the Anaheim Ducks (1993-1994).

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